________________
Aptavani-2
459
460
Aptavani-2
have never attained the vitarag religion.
Vitarags were completely different. People are not aware and have no knowledge of what the vitarags had to do on the vitarag path and today they are doing what the vitarags did not like. What did the vitarags not like? They said, "Do not become one-sided. When you do penance, do not become adamant about penance (tapogachha)." Vitarags say, "Do not get involved in one specific activity (gachha) in the quest for liberation". Penance or austerities is just one corner of a home; if you clean just one comer of your house, does that mean that whole house is clean? Will it get clean? No it will not. The Lord has said, "Clean all the corners of the home." The Lord is not going to clean them for you. People get stuck in doing only penance or only renunciation or only reading scriptures.
Kabir says: "Pustak padha padha jag mooah, pandit bhaya naa koi.' "The worldly beings have died reading scriptures life after life, and yet no one has become a true scholar (the knower).'
Kabir did not see any learned person. By reading only books, people become inanimate like the books. You become that which you worship; that is the nature of the Self. By worshipping the vitarags, you become like them, so worship them so you too can attain moksha. Of all the countless paths there are, this narrow path of the vitarags is the only path that will liberate you. Once in a while, a person can go through this path, but it is very rare indeed. Otherwise, there are always countless different paths and they are paths which lead to endless wandering between and in the four life forms (human, animal, hell and celestial). People become content to take comfort from these paths and claim, "We have attained a lot."
Follow the Gnani Vitarags have said, "For liberation you do not have to do
anything: all you have to do is just follow the Gnani all the way." You may ask, "But what if I have addictions and smoke behind his back?" To that I say, "You can do that; you can also smoke in front of him, but follow the Gnani. Do not let go of his hand." You may ask, "Who is considered a Gnani?" A Gnani is someone who has nothing left to know in this world. If you consider someone who does not know everything to be a Gnani, then if you ask him something, he may get confused, what can the poor man do? He will become confused from within and will show you the scriptures. Now what are we going to do with the scriptures? Why do you show me the scriptures? Why don't you speak from within? Tell us whether the one within is dead or alive? If you are alive from within, why don't you say something? But why do you bring scriptures into all this? The scriptures are just signposts. They are the 'board' that tells you the name of the station where you need to embark. But do we need signboards every time? You need them once in a while and only to know which 'station' you are at. The scriptures themselves tell you. "Go to a Gnani."
In life, if you want a wrong path, if you want worldly pleasures, if you want to experience the misery of the ego, the Lord says, "Read the scriptures and practice renunciation, do penance, do the rosary beads, do whatever suits you. Take one subject matter and you will reap its benefits. You will be rebom as a celestial, a human or in some other life form.'Surely you will reap some benefits if you worship any of God's subjects? The path of liberation however, is a path free of any subject matters. In this path there is no renunciation, penance or any other external subjects.
Vitarags are very wise. They have given us the simplest and a straightforward path to moksha. Others have created nothing but confusion and chaos in the path to moksha. It is such a maze that there is no way out once you get into it. There is no such mistake in the path of vitarags because they are
